Popov’s Success & French Olympic Medal Hope | DTN Gombrowicz Reaction

Christo Popov wrote a new page in French badminton by winning the World Tour Finals in China on Sunday, the equivalent of the tennis Masters, a first for a French player. Did you expect such success?

Cyrille Gombrowicz : Many of us knew that Christo Popov had all the qualities to win a big title, since he really hadn’t been far away for more than six months. He had made numerous semi-finals and a final at the IFB (editor’s note: French Open Badminton), with very, very close matches against the best in the world. But here, the feat is to have had tense matches against the very first world players and each time to have tipped them in his favor. It was really a strong sequence.

At the end of this year 2025, France finds itself with three players in the world Top 15 (editor’s note: Alex Lanier 7th, Christo Popov 8th and Toma Popov 15th), where does this excellence of French badminton come from?

C.G. : This is long-term work, which is carried out by the Federation and the national technical direction. There has been important work going on for more than 25 years, both in terms of detection, which has improved, and in the training of the youngest. Now, we have players who start badminton at 6 or 7 years old, whereas previously, it was perhaps at 11-12 years old. And they are better trained. (…) We have structured our training centers. We have Hope centers, two France Jeunes centers, and an Olympic center at INSEP. We improved the skills of the coaches. We are always trying to strengthen supervision. It is all of these parameters which explain this beautiful hatching.

In Fos-sur-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône), the Popov brothers also found the ideal setting to establish themselves at a high level with their father as their daily coach…

C.G. : Yes. And I would say that we also have the intelligence to allow atypical structures or paths to exist and to have them recognized. We have both centers, poles, national training centers, but we also recognize structures like that of Fos, which is independent but benefits from the support of the Federation. It has the recognition of the latter and thanks to this, it benefits from aid provided by the National Sports Agency. But we don’t do it for nothing: there was also credibility in what was put in place around the players, particularly the progress they displayed. And all this pays off after a certain number of years.

If we add to the three boys the performances of Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue in mixed doubles (bronze medalists at the Worlds in 2025 and the first French people to win a Super 1000), can we consider that France is establishing itself as a strong place in world badminton?

C.G. : There is still a long way to go to be a great badminton nation, a major nation. If we talk about a major nation, it is China, Korea or even Japan, which has been trying for more than 20 years and is on the verge of becoming one. But this is the Federation’s stated ambition: to become a great badminton nation. I think we are on the way, we are showing positive signs. But we’re not there yet. We don’t have a world title or an Olympic coronation. And to be a great nation, you have to do it in several disciplines.

Glass ceilings have been broken this year, however. Is it linked to the emulation of having three players at the highest level pushing each other to the top?

C.G. : These ceilings were broken because we achieved regular results, little by little, year after year. With, for example, Alex Lanier’s victory last year on a 750 in Japan. The fact of performing performances that have never been achieved before by a French player, of course that breaks down psychological barriers. It allows you to overcome difficult moments in a match, to hang on and then turn a match around, that’s for sure. It also allows you to have confidence in the technicians, in the coaches, in the management. And not to systematically question his management team, his guideline in his training. It’s also good to have some consistency and to have patience. To tell yourself that the work put in place does not always bear fruit in the coming weeks, but perhaps in the coming months. However, today there is confidence in the French badminton school for very high level performance. And she asserts herself. We don’t think that we’ll get there by copying recipes from other countries. We must of course study what is happening elsewhere, but also define our own badminton school for performance, with our own ecosystem. We have a particular system in France, and we must be able to take advantage of all its advantages.

We talk a lot about the Lebrun effect for visibility and the number of licensees in table tennis, do you expect an identical effect for badminton after these excellent results? How can we capitalize on this performance?

C.G. : We expect to have more licensees, that’s for sure. Afterwards, the feat is notable but the Lebrun brothers won a medal at the Olympics which we have not yet done so we hope to continue our momentum and continue to have first-rate international results with already medals at the world championships. That’s the goal. Afterwards, we can think about an Olympic medal. However, capitalizing on all of this also means being able to welcome people. We therefore want to be able to gain in playing area, to have more pitches, particularly in large cities where we have a problem of saturation of our clubs. This is why we are trying to develop pacts with clubs in order to allow the acquisition of land thanks also to the persuasion of club presidents in their communities to gain practice spaces. The federation then comes to support. This is another key issue, as is the creation of clubs in areas where badminton is lacking.